


In the Woods Somewhere

by Ascoeur



Category: Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019), Harley Quinn (Comics), Harley Quinn - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Harleen Quinzel - Freeform, Harleen Quinzel/Pamela Isley - Freeform, Harley Quinn - Freeform, Pamela Isley - Freeform, Poison Ivy - Freeform, harley quinn/poison ivy - Freeform, harlivy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ascoeur/pseuds/Ascoeur
Summary: Based on Hozier's song of the same name. After a terrible tragedy, Harley struggles to find the will to continue living. When she ventures into the woods, will she find something more than what she bargained for?
Relationships: Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy
Kudos: 39





	In the Woods Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic lol :D

_“Ivy…”_

In her fevered sleep, Harley murmured the name of her love. _Ivy._ Everyone else had known her as Pamela. The elusive, soft-spoken red-haired woman who lived at the edge of the village, in the small house that her father had built for their family. But to Harley, Pamela had been Ivy.

A funny nickname that she created years ago when they were children. They had been playing in the forest, having ventured much too far away from the village against both their parents’ warnings. They were playing a chasing game. Harley was the chaser, and Ivy the chased. That was always how they played the game. Harley was always the one to chase after her funny red-haired love, and that was the one thing that never changed through the years.

***

As little Harley chased her friend through the woods, they both giggled with childlike excitement. Pamela turned back to look at Harley, her smile wide and bright. Then, her look changed to one of shock as she tripped, tumbling down a hill head over heels. She kept rolling like that until she got to the bottom, her fall cushioned by a thick, overgrown patch of vines with pointed leaves that grew together in threes.

Pamela screamed and threw her hands up, trying not to let the plant touch her bare skin as she scrambled to get to her feet, although it was too late for that. She was entangled in the vines of the plant.

“What’s a matter?” Harley asked, not yet knowledgeable of the plant’s effect.

“This is poison ivy!” Pamela shouted back. “It gives you a rash everywhere it touches you.”

“It’s a lil’ late for that,” Harley giggled.

“It’s not funny!” Pamela chastised her as she climbed back to the top of the hill. Though they were the same age, she was always so serious. Much more discerning than Harley could ever be. The adults of their small village simply loved that about Pamela. They always talked about what a wonderful child she was, unlike Harley, who was her opposite in so many ways.

“Whatever you say, _Ivy._ ” Harley hopped up a little on her toes, pleased at the newfound nickname.

“Do not call me this.” Pamela scowled at her. Her request was not honored, and in time she would grow fond of the name which only Harley would ever be allowed to call her.

***

_“Ivy…”_

Harley mumbled the name again, tossing under her covers. It was nightfall and she was alone in the cabin. The only light coming in was from the full moon outside, it streamed down through the foliage of the trees and in through the windows, casting strange shadows across the interior walls of the cabin.

Harley’s face glistened with beads of sweat, her blonde hair stringy and matted against her forehead in wet tendrils. Her short, labored breathing came in as wheezes, and her teeth clattered in her sleep. Despite being piled under warm quilts and furs, she was terribly chilled. She had fallen ill to the mysterious fever that had swept through her village, and others surrounding it.

_“Ivy…”_

Harley called out again, but this time, a voice answered back.

“I’m here, my love.”

Harley’s eyes fluttered open. She strained to turn her head to look at Ivy, standing over her bed, staring down at her lovingly, though worry knitted her brows. She was beautiful, she always had been. Her gorgeous red hair cascaded down her neck and draped over her shoulders in perfect waves. In the spots where it caught the moonlight, Harley could swear it looked like fire.

 _Fire._ What a terrible thought.

“Ivy… I thought…” Harley’s words were interrupted by a coughing fit. She choked on the air her lungs desperately tried to inhale.

“Easy now, easy. Slow breaths.” Ivy coached. Harley tried to control her breathing until the painful coughing ceased and she was able to again take in slow breaths of the cold night air.

“Ivy, how are you here?”

“I had to come to see that you were alright.”

“Ive, I’m so sorry.” Tears began to fill Harley’s eyes. She reached out a shaking hand to Ivy, but Ivy only stared at it.

“You have nothing to apologize for. But Harley, I cannot stay.”

Ivy turns around and began to walk away. Harley’s hand dropped, unable to force her weak muscles to hold it up any longer.

“Ivy, wait…” Harley started to move the furs off of herself, barely able to get the heavy things down past her middle. “Take me with you.”

As Ivy reached the door, she turned around. A soft smile crossed her face.

“Harley. You’re not done yet.”

Ivy’s voice seemed to almost echo. As she opened the door, unnaturally white light blared in from the outside. Harley squinted, the light practically blinding. She struggled to get up, to move the furs off of herself and follow Ivy into, well, wherever. She didn’t care what that light held or how painful it was to look at because all Harley wanted, all she had ever wanted, was to follow Ivy. To the ends of the Earth and beyond if need be.

But Harley couldn’t move. She was stuck, her muscles refusing to work as if she’d been paralyzed, or some great invisible weight had suddenly decided to press itself down onto every inch of her body, preventing any movement.

Harley watched Ivy walk into the light, disappearing into it.

“Ivy!”

Harley bolted up in her bed. Confused, she searched the cabin, once again bathed in the almost complete blackness of the night. She looked at the door, which was closed.

Harley laid back down, coughing as she did. Ivy was never there. How could she be? It had been days since Harley had succumbed to this strange fever, many more days than Harley perhaps knew. And it had been several days before that, that Ivy had died. Not just died, but had been burned alive at the stake.

Harley closed her eyes and shuddered at the memory. Harley forced her heavy eyes open and stared out the window, unable to watch the visions of flames dance behind her eyelids anymore.

It was difficult to tell how far into the night it was, or for how long Harley had been asleep. After Ivy had perished, Harley had retreated from the village into this cabin which had been hidden away in the forest where others wouldn’t dare venture for fear of wild beasts.

The cabin hadn’t always stood there. Harley and Ivy had built it a few years back, just after they had both reached marriageable age which, in their village, was not very old. They had built the quaint cabin as an escape from their normal lives. The tiresome and tedious work of sewing, of making jams and curing chunks of meat in salt crates for the winter, and other such tasks which were foisted upon them. Women in their village were expected to do three things: keep a home in good order (which of course meant cooking, cleaning, and mending clothes and other textiles), marry a suitable man, and bear his children. The idea of doing those three things in perpetuity, the last two in particular, was an unbearable thought for both Harley and Ivy.

Harley had always been good with her hands. She knew how to use an axe, how to chop trees, and in her mind she saw how to build the wonderful little cabin they both called home. Ivy had filled it with intricate tapestries, pots, pans, blankets. All the cozy things they needed to make it into a true home. Harley, of course, supplied the furniture, discovering that she was quite the skilled woodworker. She enjoyed the smell of the fresh pine, and the look of the wood grain after it had been sanded and polished to perfection.

They had cherished their home which they kept secret from the rest of the world. They relished the time they were able to spend there, though there was often little of it, especially as they grew older. Unlike the men of their village, who were given more freedoms as they matured, Harley and Ivy, like all the other women, were given less, and restricted more. They were expected to find husbands. There were plenty of suitors, especially for Ivy. It wasn’t just Harley who saw her as being the most beautiful woman in the village.

But Ivy always found an excuse to turn them down. Not enough money, not enough chickens, too old, too scrawny. She was clever in the reasons she would come up with for why she couldn’t marry this man or that. And her parents were generous, they loved their daughter and only wanted her happiness, but their generosity could not extend into eternity. She would have to be married eventually, and so would Harley, and as they both knew this, they also knew that every moment they had together was precious, and they cherished their nights in their cabin home together. Being able to prepare meals together and eat alone, relishing the conversation or at other times comfortable silence they shared. At nights, the feeling of each other underneath the blankets of their bed. Those moments especially, were ones that they both held close to their hearts.

Though Ivy was beautiful and desired by many, she was reclusive. She kept mostly to herself, not bothering to speak with many of the people in their village except for Harley. She spent much of her time in her garden or in the forest, studying the plant life.

Harley wasn’t the only one with unique skills. Ivy understood the natural world unlike anyone else. She could grow any plant in the world it seemed, no matter the season. Watching Ivy tend to her plants was like watching an artist paint a masterpiece, Harley had always imagined. The delicate way she would touch the foliage, grazing her hands over the stems and leaves as if her fingertips themselves were giving life to the plants. Maybe they were.

Ivy’s incomparable knowledge of plant life stretched beyond simply keeping them alive, however. She had studied them so extensively that she understood their various and strange purposes. A root from one, flower petals from another. To Ivy they all had their own uses, whether those be to heal wounds or fix a stomach ache, dye fabrics into brilliant shades or add incredible flavors to food. Ivy knew exactly what to concoct to bring a man back from the brink of death, but she also knew exactly what kind of concoction would put a man in that position to begin with, though she never would have dared to use her knowledge for that dark purpose. Perhaps she should have.

Though many villagers had been quite taken with Ivy’s beauty, others were not so enraptured by her. Some took to whispering about her, fearful of her quiet ways, unsure of her bond with nature, speaking of her gifts like they were some kind of wicked magic.

What started as whisperings grew to pervasive rumors that reached other towns, and came back to their village with new twisted additions. Once that dreaded word had been thrown into the rumors, Ivy’s fate had been sealed.

 _Witch._ And every village had the same way of dealing with a witch amongst their kin.

A single tear slipped down Harley’s cheek as she remembered the fateful day that those people, those _monsters_ , took her love from her.

Harley pushed the furs off of her body and stood shakily, her legs weak and wobbling as she balanced herself against the nightstand beside her.

She couldn’t understand why the fever had yet to take her. It had already taken many stronger than her, as well as those with much more to live for. What did she have? Now that Ivy was gone.

She took one step forward, and then another, getting her bearings as she knelt down in front of the stove. She felt around to the side of it, finding two cool objects; a pale piece of flint and a curved piece of steel that fit comfortably around her fingers as she held it. Holding the flint in one hand, she struck it with the steel in her other, sparks flying onto the tinder of the stove. Eventually, a spark caught light.

Harley shoved the flint and steel into one of her nightdress pockets and held her cold hands up to the small fire that began to grow and illuminate the room in its flickering orange glow.

After taking a moment to warm herself, Harley stood and shuffled over to the kitchen table. She picked up a pewter pitcher of water and, not bothering to search for a mug, began to drink straight from the pitcher. Water dribbled down her neck in faint streams as she gulped the cool liquid, unaware of how thirsty she must have been.

She set down the pitcher with a clank. She closed her eyes again, steadying her breath as she tried to not go into another coughing fit. When she opened them again, a shadow flickering against a wall caught her attention. It looked like-

“Ivy?” Harley turned around to the shadow’s origin. Not Ivy, but her coat, hanging on a wooden coat hanger by the door. Harley put her hand to her head and grimaced, exasperated and already exhausted despite having just awoken. She mumbled a silent prayer for her mind to be good to her, and for it to not continue to torture her with these imagined visions of her Ivy.

Harley moved back to the stove to tend to the fire, and as she did so, she noticed the musket mounted on the wall above.

***

“Do you even know how to use this thing?” Ivy, always the skeptic, questioned Harley as she watched her load up the musket and cock it with a sharp click.

“Course. How else you think we always got so much meat stored up?” Harley answered as she handed the musket to Ivy. It was true that Harley’s family always had an abundance stored up for the winter time, so much so that it wasn’t a strain on them to share with Ivy. Harley was probably a better shot than most of the men in their village, but Ivy had yet to see her in action to know this.

“Now just stand like I showed ya, aim at something, take in a deep breath and let it out as ya fire.” Harley made it sound so easy. How could taking the life of an animal ever be?

But Ivy did as she was instructed. She had asked Harley to teach her after all. She stared down the barrel and set her sights on a hare, nibbling on some berries about 20 paces away. It was so sweet, not even bothered by Ivy and Harley’s presence. How could Ivy just end this little animal’s existence?

“Harley,” Ivy exhaled as she dropped the musket to her side, “I can’t do this. I know I said I wanted to learn, but I just…”

Harley placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Red. You don’t gotta do nothin’ you don’t want to.” Harley took the musket from her, using her other hand to rub small circles against Ivy’s back.

Ivy leaned into her touch, closing her eyes. Being a good few inches taller than Harley, she leaned her head against hers, resting her cheek on top of the blonde hair. This was a position they often took to, both comforted by the other’s presence like this.

***

Harley smiled at the memory. Ivy had always been so thoughtful, so gentle. That was probably what Harley had loved most about her, she thought. She missed her so deeply. She put her hand over her chest, trying to suppress the gnawing feeling that began to grow there.

The fever had been a welcome release for Harley. Since she had gotten the first chills, she had been bedridden, in and out of sleep during the night and day. Most of the time she did not dream, thankfully. She didn’t want to imagine the kinds of dreams she might have, what cruel imaginings her mind would play for her in her ill state.

She had hoped the fever would consume her. That she would be given quiet release one of these nights, and go out like a candle, peacefully in her warm bed that she had shared with Ivy. Each night she had prayed for it. Prayed that she could join her love again. She had nothing left in this mortal world; all that she loved had been stolen from her.

Harley looked at the musket again. She contemplated how easy it would be to go to it. To sit in a chair, and press the end of it up under her chin, to reach down and then pull the trigger. That was all it would take for her to be with her love again.

Harley stood and moved towards the gun, but then she heard it. An awful noise that cut through the hum of the darkness. A woman’s scream.

Harley ran out of the cabin, barreling towards the origin of the blood curdling sound. Had she not been in her fevered state, she might’ve thought to grab the musket off the wall, or at least a coat to protect herself from the night chill. Her sheer nightdress wouldn’t be enough to protect her from the elements for very long, and the air felt even colder against her fevered skin slicked with sweat.

Had she not been in her fevered state, she might not have run out of the cabin at all. For in her delirium, there was a part of her that believed the scream to be Ivy’s. That she was somehow alive, somehow calling out for Harley to save her. Be it man or beast, Harley would fight until her last breath to protect her love from her attacker.

Harley ran through the trees, barely able to find her way through the thickets, her only light coming from the moon above. She stopped, out of air, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. She looked up at one of the trees. Carved into its bark were three long marks. An animal had been here. Something large. Harley could tell that the marks were fresh, the new wood underneath them not yet dried and hardened.

The scream came again, much louder this time. Harley knew she was close. She took off towards it, and what she happened upon confused her at first, then horrified her as she took the sight in.

A red fox. Red like her Ivy. But redder than what was natural for a fox, its fur dripping with its own blood. It looked up at Harley with fearful eyes, whimpering and shaking as it tried to get away from her, but it could not move. Its hind legs had been twisted and torn, broken bone poking through ripped flesh and fur.

Harley couldn’t speak as she looked upon the poor creature, barely alive. This had been what had made the scream. Harley closed her eyes and tears trickled down her cheeks. Of course it had not been Ivy. Just a fox. How foolish of her.

Harley opened her eyes again and looked around for a rock large enough to end the broken animal’s suffering. Had Ivy been here, she might have been able to save the poor thing.

Once Harley herself had been badly injured. An accident had occurred while she was out chopping wood. She couldn’t quite remember what had transpired, it had all happened so fast. One minute she was holding the axe, the next it was laying on the ground beside her, blade bloodied, and blood pouring from a deep gash in her leg.

Ivy had known of a compound that stopped bleeding. Juice of pyrola and leaves of shepherd’s purse when mixed together and smoothed over a fresh wound would force the blood to congeal and harden. Ivy had saved Harley’s life.

Harley gritted her teeth at the memory. It wasn’t that Ivy was a witch. She understood medicine and plants. She knew far more than any of the simple-minded fools of their village. Ivy had described it as nature speaking through her. Harley had always believed that something more powerful than nature spoke through her, an angel, or maybe something more. But the village believed that what spoke through Ivy was the devil. And for that misconception, they killed her.

Harley raised the stone above her head. The fox’s eyes followed her movements and it still tried to back away, its breath coming out in small foggy spurts.

“I’m sorry, Ive.” Harley whispered as she brought the stone down upon the fox’s head, a sick crack echoing through the trees as it made contact. Ivy could never bare to hurt a living being, but Harley thought she might make an exception in this case.

Harley went to stand, but found that she could not. All of that running had put her into a weakened state. She saw the trees blur and shift before her eyes. Harley wasn’t fighting back against the feeling. If she succumbed to sleep here in the middle of this forest, that would likely be the end of her, and lately that was all she really wanted.

In her dizziness, she looked down at the mangled fox in front of her, now lifeless and still. She noticed the bite marks on its hind legs, large and gruesome. She wondered what kind of animal could cause those.

Her dizziness faded, and she was finally able to stand, though as she did she became nauseated. A chill went through her, but not like the chills of her fever to which she has grown accustomed. This chill came from the center of her body, reaching every one of her extremities and it seems even the little hairs covering her arms and legs. She particularly felt the ones on the back of her neck raise as if standing to attention.

Harley was not alone.

With a shaky breath she looked around, and that’s when she saw it. Bright, glowing eyes watching her through the brush. Harley thought it to be a visage, another trick of her fevered brain. But her instincts told her otherwise, and when she heard the crack of a twig come from the direction of the eyes, something inside Harley told her to run.

As she did, the creature lunged, giving chase after her. Harley had never run so fast in her entire life; she had never been chased in fact in her entire life. This night seemed to contain a slew of ironies, though Harley had no present mind to contemplate that. The only thought in her mind was to keep running. Harder. Faster. Past her breaking point. She could hear the creature gaining behind her.

In that moment, running for her life in the thick of the night, she forgot all prayers of joining Ivy. As she ran, heart pounding in her ears, for the first time since Ivy’s burning, Harley wanted to live. Even on death’s door as she had been for weeks, her only thoughts had been of joining Ivy. But now, under the pale light of this night, Harley’s only thought was to save her life.

_“You’re not done yet.”_

Ivy’s words echoed in Harley’s mind as she closed her eyes, clutching her life as she willed her legs to go faster. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that the path in front of her cut off suddenly. A cliff. She was running towards a cliff.

She had no time to think of what might lie below. If she refused to jump, she would surely be eaten by whatever creature it was that hunted her.

Deer in the chase, she leapt off the cliff, hands and legs flying through the air as she plunged to the dark depths below and into… _water!_

The rapids, deep and rushing, pushed Harley further under as she struggled to flail her way up to the surface. Her vision blurred in the water, able to see only because of the streaks of moonlight which illuminated the freezing cold surrounding her.

Everything afterwards was a blur. Her mind went blank, and the next thing she knew she had reached the shoreline, sputtering for air as she clawed at the gravel under her, pebbles becoming stuck under her nails as they tore away at the delicate skin underneath.

She flipped over onto her back and laid there as she gasped for air. The cliffs caught her eye and she saw the creature watching her. Though it was now perfectly visible in the moonlight, from this distance Harley still couldn’t tell what animal it is. It cared not for Harley anymore, as it disappeared quietly back into the trees.

Harley rolled onto her knees and sat up on them. She cried, sobs racking her body. She screamed into the star-flecked sky, adrenaline still coursing through her veins. She screamed as a challenge to the world that had put her through so much, as if to say she was here, and she wasn’t going anywhere. Not just yet.

Her mind was again flooded with thoughts of Ivy, but this time she thought back to the strange dream she had earlier. Ivy was right. She’s not done yet.

Harley pushed herself to her feet, now walking more steadily than she had since the fever set in. She found a low-hanging tree branch, and broke it off with a snap. She reached down and tore a long strip of fabric from the edge of her gown. She ran this fabric over the area she snapped the branch from, covering the cloth in the thick sap.

Harley wrapped this cloth around one end of the tree branch. Remembering her flint and steel she had pocketed earlier, she lit a spark against the cloth and watched it go up in a brilliant, steady flame. A makeshift torch Ivy had once showed her how to make.

As Harley walked through the trees, her torch lit her path as she made her way back to her cabin. She felt oddly at peace. Her fever hadn’t yet fully lifted, but her mind had cleared from its fog. When Ivy had died, she hadn’t known how she would ever keep on living, but this was how. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. She contemplated how quickly her thoughts had shifted in that moment in the woods. How quickly they had turned from death to life. She decided then and there that she had gone through too much to be finished just yet. She didn’t know how many years she would bear, but there was one thing she knew for certain.

That night, Harley had found something in the woods somewhere.


End file.
